Sea by Heidi R. Kling

Synopsis:
Still haunted by nightmares of her mother’s death, fifteen-year-old Sienna Jones reluctantly travels to Indonesia with her father’s relief team to help tsunami orphans with their post traumatic stress disorder—something Sienna knows a lot about. Since her mother’s plane went missing over the Indian Ocean three years before, Sienna doesn’t do anything if it involves the ocean or planes, so this trip is a big step forward. But the last thing she expects is to fall for Deni, a brooding Indonesian boy who lives at the orphanage. When Deni hears a rumor that his father may be alive, Sienna doesn’t think twice about running away with him to the epicenter of the disaster. Unfortunately, what they find there could break both their hearts.

My Review:
This book was not what I expected but in a good way. First of all I did not realize the story took place in Indonesia shortly after the 2004 Tsunami. The Indonesian culture added richness to the story with unfamiliar sights and sounds of the people and place. Second I did not know Sienna was also going to be suffering from her own tragedy-that being the death of her mother which she had never fully dealt with up until this point. This along with the destruction from the Tsunami added depth to the characters and their situation.

I was very entranced by everything the author said when she was describing Sienna and Deni’s adventures through Indonesia because it is a place I know nothing about. But while I have never been there I felt like I was and I would love the chance to go see it now in person now. I liked Sienna as a character mostly because I felt it was very selfless for a 15 year old girl to go to an orphanage and be a mentor for girls who do not speak her language and take herself way outside of her comfort zone. She also dropped what she was doing to help Deni find his father even though it could have been driven by the fact that she liked him. But towards the end there was a particular scene where she showed tremendous grace for a very tough situation. On the relationship aspect, I could never fully get into the Deni and Sienna romance because while I thought they were suppose to learn something from each other, I did not see them ending up together. I also thought it was very bold of the author to have Deni and Sea talk about religion which in this case was Christianity, Buddhism, and the Islamic religion. It’s not clear what Sienna decided to believe in but I can appreciate the fact that she was seeking the answers for herself.

All of these elements woven together create a beautiful story that really took a look at what it is like to lose someone you love and everything you ever called home.